”In my opinion this textbook will be a welcome and quite useful tool both for students and teachers of Statistical Mechanics.“

This invaluable textbook is an introduction to statistical physics that has been written primarily for self-study. It provides a comprehensive approach to the main ideas of statistical physics at the level of an introductory course, starting from the kinetic theory of gases and proceeding all the way to Bose–Einstein and Fermi–Dirac statistics. The key points and methods are presented and discussed on the basis of concrete representative systems. The book is written in a stimulating style and is accompanied by a large number of exercises appropriately placed within the text and by self-assessment problems at the end of each chapter. Detailed solutions of all the exercises are provided.

This book is a translation of an authoritative introductory text based on a lecture series delivered by the renowned differential geometer, Professor S S Chern in Beijing University in 1980. The original Chinese text, authored by Professor Chern and Professor Wei-Huan Chen, was a unique contribution to the mathematics literature, combining simplicity and economy of approach with depth of contents. This book includes a new chapter on Finsler geometry and a new appendix on the history and recent developments of differential geometry, the latter prepared specially for this edition by Professor Chern to bring the text into perspective. The present translation is aimed at a wide audience, including (but not limited to) advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, as well as physicists interested in the diverse applications of differential geometry in physics.

This important book reviews extensively the preparative chemistry of various nano-structured materials, as well as structural-property correlations for these new materials. Materials of current interest, such as nanocrystals, nanowires, nanotubes, porous materials, and composites, are compre-hensively covered.

The author, one of the world's foremost experts on nanoscale materials and electro-optics, is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society. The 32-year-old's name was added to the 2003 list of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review magazine, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The term "economic globalization" has been discussed extensively in the popular press, by business executives and by policy-makers all over the world. While academic economists have made some excellent contributions to specific, technical aspects of economic globalization, there appears to be a need for economists to discuss the broader aspects of the issue in a more accessible manner. Failing this, the general debate will be informed only by the writings of non-economists.

That is the motivation for this book, which is a collection of essays on various aspects of economic globalization in general, but with specific reference to Asia.